Recruitment agency Driver Hire said it had experienced the highest ever weekly turnover in its 40-plus year history with its franchised offices 10% up on the same week last year.
Despite well publicised issues over driver shortages and wider economic challenges facing the UK, Driver Hire said its network was reporting bumper revenue increases of 6% year-on-year and that 54 of its offices – over half of the total number – had achieved all-time record weeks so far this year.
Driver Hire chief executive Chris Chidley said: “It’s a remarkable achievement given the wider economic challenges facing the UK at the moment.
“Individual offices are delivering very impressive growth rates in every part of the country.
“Their success is based on a clear strategy to focus on those sectors and customers that remain busy.
“They understand the needs of their customers – that enables them to deliver the exceptional levels of service required to make businesses want to work with us,” he added.
This month, the RHA warned that 112,000 professional drivers had left the industry over the last year due to high insurance costs, expensive training requirements, the withdrawal of the government funded HGV driver bootcamps and the pressures on an industry operating on slim margins.
It has previously said that the UK needed 40,000 new HGV drivers every year for the next five years just to keep up with demand and to account for current attrition rates and an ageing workforce.
